Whole Foods deal a boost to these actor-slash-social entrepreneurs (Video)

Two of the three co-founders of the altruistic startup This Bar Saves Lives — Todd Grinnell and Ravi Patel — stop by the Upstart Business Journal to talk about their mission, what it's like to work in a three-man leadership team, and what their favorite pieces of advice are. (J. Jennings Moss/Upstart Business Journal)

Ravi Patel and Todd Grinnell are two of the three co-founders of This Bar Saves Lives, a granola bar company based in Venice, Calif. that's trying to fight world hunger. J. Jennings Moss/Upstart Business Journal

The UpTake: A trio of Hollywood actors are finding that being in movies and TV shows has become a side job to their real passion: running a granola bar company that has the mission of fighting world hunger, one that's been embraced by Whole Foods.

Points of inspiration:Devlin had read the book Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie, the founder of Toms Shoes. Grinnell was impressed with the story of Warby Parker, which donates eyeglasses to kids. Ravi Patel, the third co-founder, was good friends with other leaders of social enterprise companies. All three of them were fans of Paul Newman, both as an actor and a philanthropist. “Our dream is to be like Newman’s own someday and have a variety of different products that are helping,” Grinnell said.

The mission behind the mission:“We are mission first,” Patel said. “We’re a bunch of actors who had no business being in the granola business and are doing this because we want to help a problem, so we always have to keep an eye on that. That means being as savvy as possible with the quality of what we give while being as efficient as possible in how we give it.” One example of that efficiency: instead of figuring out how to get the Plumpy Nut to children in refugee camps, they give to Save the Children, which handles the actual distribution.

Not a non-profit or a B-corp.: This Bar Saves Lives is set up as a for-profit company, even though its mission seems more fitting for another model. The founders say the enterprise is profitable with all the profits getting sunk back into the business, though they won’t discuss specifics. “It’s a win-win for everbody,” Grinnell says. “It allows us to build a big business that can do a lot more over time rather than us trying to constantly fundraise and generate money that way.”

What comes first, acting or the business? To hear them tell it, they each have two full-time jobs — one performing in TV shows and movies, the other running This Bar Saves Lives. “This is by far our number one priority,” Patel says, adding that he had passed on a string of auditions just to spend more time on the company. Grinnell runs the operation’s side of the business and all the philanthropic outreach, Devlin heads up the sales side, and Patel oversees marketing, partnerships and finance duties.

J. "Josh" Jennings Moss has spent time on the police beat in Florida, on the political trail in Washington, D.C., and on the business front in New York. Among the places he’s journalized: Condé Nast Portfolio, FoxNews.com, ABCNews.com, the Advocate, the Washington Times, and the Tampa Tribune. Josh graduated from the University of Arizona and lives in New York City.

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